


a hot summer afternoon, 1932

by puckity



Series: friends, or something like it [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Just A Little Bit Of Angst, Best Friends, Family, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not that it matters, but Steve Rogers does have more than one friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a hot summer afternoon, 1932

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiaraSayre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraSayre/gifts).



> Written for the 2014 Star-Spangled Fic Exchange and beta'd by the wonderful-as-ever Rachel!
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

Contrary to what most people seemed to think, Steve Rogers has more than one friend. Just because he happens to spend most of his time with one friend in particular doesn’t mean that’s the only one he’s got.

“Isn’t there anyone else you could go out with?” Steve’s mother asks as she peels potatoes. A copper pot of boiling water hisses next to her. Steve watches her hands shake a little as the peels fall jagged and lumpier than they would have a few months before. There is a wheeze and a rattle beneath her breath that nags cold at the back of Steve’s neck.

He scratches his ear and huffs out, “Ma, I got other friends.”

“I’m sure you do; you’re such a nice boy. It’s just—” The peeler slips and grazes her knuckle. She winces and Steve moves forward to take the whole thing from her. He would have done it before—as soon as he walked into the kitchen—if he thought she would have let him. But Sarah Rogers is as stubborn as her son and Steve had learned not to fight her for it. Both of them would rather have it right than easy.

“How about Robby Mitchell? From upstairs?” Sarah wraps a towel tight around her hand. “You two used to go out all the time.”

“I never went out with Robby Mitchell.” Steve peels with a vengeance, as though it is the potatoes’ fault that his mother’s got bloody knuckles. “He used to follow me around and when I’d tell him to get lost he’d make a big scene about it. I got a talking-to from Mrs. Mitchell about that, remember?”

“Well, what about the boys from school? Or the girls?” She starts cutting the peeled potatoes, working around the makeshift bandage. “You’re handsome, Steve. Like your father.”

Steve skips the peeler and it almost takes a chunk out of the tip of his finger. “Ma, don’t do that. Don’t—whadda I need a girl for right now? I got the best one here.” He nudges her with his elbow.

She smiles and for a second her cheeks don’t look quite as sallow as Steve knows they’ve become. “I didn’t mean it like that. Girls can be friends too, you know.”

“I know.” They are quiet for a while. The warm, late summer air stuffs itself into the apartment and Steve imagines that it could be medicinal—a balm for the rattle in his mother’s lungs. He wipes a line of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“It’s a nice afternoon,” Steve offers. “I could go down the block and see if Carl and the fellas got a game going. I wouldn’t mind some exercise.” That’s a lie; on this kind of stinking hot day Steve would much rather sit in his undershirt and shorts on the living room sofa and fan himself with yesterday’s folded newspaper. But his ma thinks that he’s only got one friend and disproving that is now a matter of principle.

“Sure, as long as you’re home for dinner. I didn’t give my blood, sweat, and tears to these potatoes for you to not even eat them.” Sarah scolds like she teases, light and gentle. “Have fun.”

She pulls the loose strands of hair that escaped her pins back behind her ear and exhales. Steve watches the lines of age and worry pull a little less taunt. He leans over and kisses her on the cheek.

“I’ll be back by four-thirty.” He grabs his jacket off a kitchen chair; he doesn’t need another layer but it’s habit and he doesn’t think about it until he’s down a flight and a half of stairs and can hear his mother humming a song out the open apartment window. It’s a melody that he can’t quite place but it hits his ears sweet and comforting anyway.

\-----

Steve’s team loses the game. To be more accurate about it, Steve’s team is crushed into rocks and pebbles and it wasn’t even really Steve’s team. He wasn’t the captain; if he was being honest with himself he’d admit that most of the guys rolled their eyes and grumbled amongst themselves when he asked to play. He didn’t really ask, because he knew if he asked Carl would find a way to politely say no. They had an odd number so it wouldn’t be like Steve was causing them any trouble; besides, he knew that Carl liked him enough to give him one game. So there were heavy sighs and “C’mon Rogers!” whenever he fumbled but he wasn’t the only one who’d lost that game and when it was over they’d all walked out of the court raucous and jostling together and Steve had been on the edge of it but he’d still been there.

He is thinking about the ugly pockmarks of dirt and asphalt that climb around the knees of his pants as he works the key into the front door lock. It’s sticky like the Brooklyn twilight; it needs finessing but Steve doesn’t have the patience for it. He forces it with his shoulder instead and when it gives he tumbles into the little foyer.

“Ma, I’m home!” Steve hears voices in the kitchen, low as murmurs with a few cracks of laughter in between. The tones are mingled high and deep and Steve walks in to two familiar backs in the kitchen instead of one.

“Sorry I’m late.” His watch hands hang at five to five and Steve makes an unsuccessful attempt at hiding the pants stains behind table legs. His mother turns and catches them immediately. Her eyebrows pinch together.

“I didn’t know we were having company.” Steve’s gaze settles on shoulders that are too broad for a kid his age hunched over the sink, elbow deep in soap suds.

Sarah dries her hands on a clean dishrag. Steve notices that her knuckles are bound in clean, white gauze. “James came by to see Mrs. Dee. I heard him in the courtyard and invited him up for a lemonade.”

Steve watches the suds dampen rolled-up shirt sleeves. “You made him wash the dishes?”

“Of course not.” Bucky doesn’t turn; he speaks over his shoulder. He pulls the drain plug out with a pop and shakes the soap from his arms. “I offered. Since I was here anyway, dirtying dishes myself.” He grins at Steve and Sarah both—the kind of grin that is all gloss and charm and dazzle. The kind of grin that makes trouble and then gets off scot-free. The kind of grin that Sarah might have warned Steve about more if he’d been her daughter and not her son.

They see right through it—both of them in the same way with crossed arms and a little shake of their heads—but Steve doesn’t say anything because maybe he wants to be a little dazzled even if he’s not. Not really. He’d rather Bucky grin at him like that than not grin at him at all.

Sarah rolls her eyes and swats at him with the towel. “Alright, James Barnes. You can save your Casanova speeches for better prospects.”

Bucky looks like he’s getting ready to lay it on thick, so Steve jumps in and cuts him off before he goes too far. His mother likes Bucky, and Steve wants to keep it that way.

“I thought you had plans, Buck.” _A date._ That is what Steve meant. That is what Bucky told him when Steve asked why they couldn’t go to the pictures together like they did every Wednesday. Steve doesn’t know why, but he thinks that maybe it would have been safer to just let Bucky pay his mom some flashy compliments and be done with it.

Bucky stares at him, close and narrow. Steve’s chest and neck flush and he feels crowded even though Bucky is all the way across the room. He wants to look away, wants to look at his ma and let her know this isn’t weird—it isn’t _weird_ —because she is probably thinking it’s a little weird by now. He wants to lose; he’s already lost once today so it isn’t like he’d be breaking any kind of streak. But losing and quitting are two different things and Steve doesn’t quit. Especially with his best friend. Steve would stand their all night staring Bucky down if he had to, cold potato stew be damned.

But Bucky doesn’t make him do that, never makes him do that. Bucky bows out so Steve won’t have to, with a nonchalant shrug of his too-big shoulders and a rough hand through his hair.

“Got canceled.” And that is it, all that Bucky gives and all that Steve needs.

Steve nods and starts out of the kitchen, thinking that he should change into a clean pair of pants for dinner before his ma catches back up with him on that. He’s mid-step when a long arm reaches out and pulls him back into a half-hug half-headlock. He lands hard against the body that keeps growing and leaving his farther and farther behind.

“Besides, what better plans could I have than dinner with my best girl?” Bucky smiles at Sarah but squeezes Steve’s shoulder.

“James Buchanan Barnes, you keep that kind of talk up and I’ll have to speak with your mother.” Sarah says it with a tight mouth—tight from keeping laughter out rather than keeping anger in. Steve chuckles in spite of himself and Bucky laughs outright, and they drag each other to the table as the big grandfather clock in the living room chimes five.


End file.
